I remember that I was outside playing with other kids in the neighborhood when my Mom called to me from the front door. She said I had a phone call from WHIO-TV. I couldn’t believe it. They said they wanted me to come in so they could meet me, that I was a finalist. I went in but I never got the impression there was anyone else as they told me I had won! That began a whirlwind of activity. I was going to be bat boy for one game, probably only pick up the bats for the first inning as it was a MLB rule that you couldn’t be on the field unless you were an employee of the team but the umpires would “look the other way” for the first inning. I went to the radio studio and recorded some promos for the game. My family got tickets right behind home plate for the game. The night of the game I got there early and was given a uniform to wear and shown how to fix the socks the way the big leaguers did. There were some promotional photos taken. I was given a baseball and I got almost every player on the team to sign it. I still have that ball and I bet it gets more valuable every day. One of the batboys showed me around and told me which players were friendly and which players were grumpy. They tried to get me to try “Red Man” chewing tobacco but I politely declined. I got to pick up the bats for the bottom of the first inning. The Reds went down 1-2-3. I got to sit in the dugout for the next 6 innings. Sometime during the game I had the most amazing experience any kid who loves baseball could have. Pete Rose was the lead off man and Joe Morgan batted second on that team. I remember sitting on the back of the bench with my feet on the seat and my rear-end on the top. Pete Rose come over and sat down just to my right and Joe Morgan sat down just to my left. They carried on a conversation with each other as if I wasn’t there and I felt like I was in a parallel universe where I was a fly on the wall in a major league dugout. I will never, ever forget that experience. After the seventh inning I was taken into the clubhouse where I changed back into my street clothes and was taken to the seats where my parents were behind home plate. My life was changed forever. Baseball was for me the greatest game there was.
Morgan, Bench, Clooney on Ellen
Today was Martin Luther King Day so Heather and I were home from work. This morning while we were having coffee we watched the “Ellen DeGeneres Show“. She has a schtick where she has been trying to get George Clooney (He’s Mine in ’09!) on the show and today she finally succeeded by bringing 2 of my all-time favorite baseball players on, Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench. George is a huge fan of the Big Red Machine. When I grew up in Kettering, Ohio, I followed the Cincinnati Reds and the Reds in the ’70′s were called “The Big Red Machine”. George Clooney grew up in the Cincinnati area because his father, Nick Clooney, had a daytime show in Cincinnati. Watching the show reminded me of my childhood and how important baseball was to me. Being a baseball fan in southern Ohio in the 1970′s meant following future Hall of Famer’s like Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, and their manager Sparky Anderson. Not in the Hall of Fame but still baseball’s all-time hits leader Pete Rose (Charlie Hustle) was also on those teams. I became a life long baseball fan as a result of those memories. I was such a huge fan that on any day of the regular season I could tell you what any player on the Red’s statistics were, their batting average or RBI’s or ERA. This was because every day I would pour over the boxscore from the previous night’s game and would look at their statistics for the season too. I was such a math geek 
. All of this work paid off for me in a big way. At the end of the season in the early ’70′s the Red’s had “Fan Appreciation Night” for their fans from up the interstate and the local TV station, WHIO-TV, had a contest. The entry was to write in 25 words or less why you should be the Red’s batboy for one night and that was the prize. Stay tuned for Part 2 of this story!
